Laboratory grown blood vessels provide a research platform for studying premature aging syndrome and other rare diseases. Biomedical engineers have grown artificial miniature human blood vessels that display many symptoms and drug reactions associated with Hutchinson–Gilford Progeria Syndrome. According to the study published in the journal Scientific Reports , researchers believe that deterioration of smooth muscle cells causes heart failure causing death in the patients with progeria. But, because of limited sample size, it is difficult to study in the patients themselves.
Thus, miniature artificial blood vessels using induced pluripotent stem cells derived from cells taken from patients with progeria were developed for drug testing. In just four weeks of growth, the engineered blood vessels exhibit many of the symptoms seen in people with the disease. The blood vessels also respond…
